marketing Thomas Jelneck marketing Thomas Jelneck

Get Niche. Get Rich.

“Everyone is NOT your customer.”
- Seth Godin

I'll always ask prospects this question: "Who is your market?" The response I get way more than I'd like: "EVERYONE, everyone is our market. We can sell this to everyone." Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Reality Check.

The Internet is hard. It's huge. It's getting bigger and bigger every day, which means that your target consumer of EVERYONE is getting distracted in such a way that you can't even imagine. There is no possible way that your business, UNLESS you are Pepsi, Apple, Amazon, etc., can reach out to effectively grab the attention of this audience and make a difference. The bottom line, your company and its marketing efforts will die way before you get any real traction and grab any market share.

You MUST Niche.

Take a look at your products and / or service. Sure, its possible that everyone could have a use for what you're flipping, but as we've discovered, you can't really market effectively to everyone. Choose a more niche audience, perhaps it's pregnant moms, maybe it's a segment of the population that's obsessed with Banjos or coffee, find a niche of people that would love your product or service and BE THERE. Connect with that target audience, show them how you know them, get to know their language and speak it, speak it well.

Stop Marketing Your Products.

Start marketing the essence of your company. If your company doesn't have a personality, get one. Be you. Bring it to life. People DON'T want to buy from a faceless, boring corporation. They want to buy from a company that speaks to them. A company with conviction and possibly even values, a company that isn't afraid to be creative and NOT speak corporate speak. A company that has balls. Stop being SAFE, start being alive and not afraid to push some boundaries. Don't, of course, be a schmuck, but be alive.

Getting Ready To Get Ready.

What are you waiting for? Waiting for your marketing messaging to be perfect? Good luck. The people who win at Marketing are the wins who go for it. They fail. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes they crush it right out of the gate. The point is, you'll NEVER FREAKING KNOW if you don't get going, NOW. Ready? GO. Sure, you have to plan, sure you have to create and YES, you have to measure, but I see so many companies getting ready to get ready and they NEVER pull the trigger.

Maybe it's fear of failure, maybe it's laziness, maybe it's simply not in their wheel-house. If you can't get your marketing rocking and rolling, call a pro who can help. In fact, if you know enough to be dangerous about social media, SEO, content marketing, etc., you SHOULD hire someone who does it for a living and knows WAY more than how to be dangerous. This is NOT an area to skimp on or attempt to do it yourself.
 

The Bottom Line.

standout.gif

You NEED to stand out. You need to be remarkable. You need to sending different vibes than all of your competitors. You need to be amazing in your own right and share that amazing with the rest of the NICHE that you've chosen.

Thanks for reading and sharing with a friend,
@TomJelneck

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Business, marketing Thomas Jelneck Business, marketing Thomas Jelneck

Status Level = EXPERT.

How To Attract Media Coverage Through Digital Marketing.

So many people ask me how I've managed to become a trusted media provider of Tech & Digital Marketing content. The simple answer? I'm an expert. The more complicated answer? It took me years to finally come to the realization that I have to tell my story. I have to be comfortable enough to tell the world that I'm an expert. Once I did that, everything changed.

I'll never forget... Looking down at the caller ID in my office and seeing the Daily Buzz calling me. The Daily Buzz was a Nationwide morning program filmed live here in Orlando. They had done a Google search and found me under a keyphrase like Social Media Expert. After a few appearances on the Daily Buzz, my phone rang under. This time, it was the local Orlando Fox affiliate. They came to my offices and shot a piece on Social Media. Not long after that, I was appearing in their studios, sometimes taping 2-3 segments at a time.

This earned media coverage has been a blessing, one that I NEVER take for granted, one that helps instill confidence in my prospects, one that helps me stay on top of the ever-changing tech and digital marketing space. I've had the great fortune to appear on TV now over 260 times. As a side effect, I've also been on other media outlets and channels, have been covered in the USA Today, have been on a global station, CCTV a few times, it's been amazing.

So, how can you become a trusted expert? Well first and foremost, you have to know your stuff. Read EVERYDAY, absorb your industry, go to the networking events and hang out with smarter people than you. Read industry publications, subscribe to every bit of information that you can in order to constantly improve yourself. Next, the hard part, TELL the world that you're an expert. People want to buy from experts, they want to know that you / or your company is the absolute best. No one wants to work with a novice, ever.

9 Ways To Help Build Your Expert Status Level

  • Start a blog. Keep it up. Share your thoughts, share your wisdom, share your feelings about the state of your industry.
  • Keep your social media on point. Tweet and post about your industry, share your insights with substance, remind people that you are the expert in your space.
  • Build your tribe. I can't stress this enough, surround yourself on social media with influencers who believe in you and your expertise. Feed them, enlighten them, entertain them.
  • Build a media list. Find the right people that you want coverage from on social media. Be a real human being, don't spam them, don't solicit them, but feed them and help to make their jobs easier. Reporters need your help, they need your expertise, make it available to them.
  • Be gracious. If you do get a media hit or inquiry, be nice. I can't state that enough. Try to be as accommodating as you can to help the reporter get the information that they need.
  • Be thankful. After a media hit, remember to thank the media outlet / reporter, etc.. Professional courtesy goes a long way.
  • Market your media hit. Don't forget to post your media hit on social media, boost it on Facebook, upload it to your website / blog, it helps to attract other media outlets and builds credibility for your company / business.
  • Google is your friend. Be certain that you are keeping your blog / social media channel / youtube channel current. The media USES Google to find experts like you.
  • NEVER, EVER sell your products or promote yourself during any media hit. It's perfectly acceptable to say who you are and what you do, but, this is not an opportunity to sell, EVER.

Again, the hardest part of all of this is telling the world that you're an expert. I'm actually a very shy individual and don't thrive on telling people how awesome I am. It's hard, but it HAS to be done. No one will recognize you as an expert if you don't recognize yourself as one first.

Thanks for reading and good luck out there!
Tom

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Contact Me

If I can help your business grow and thrive with expert Digital Marketing / SEO guidance, please call me. In Orlando, 407-830-4550, Nationwide: 866-998-6886.

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SEO Thomas Jelneck SEO Thomas Jelneck

The REAL Secret SEO Sauce.

“Feed them what they want, talk to them about how you can constantly improve what you are feeding them. Businesses need to realize this: they need to focus on feeding humans rich, amazing content, and THEN optimize that content so that Google loves it.”

I've had so many people over the years ask what my secret sauce is for SEO and digital marketing. I guess with so many hacks out in the digital marketing landscape and so much dis-information out there about search marketing, companies / businesses have come to look at SEO as grey, or some wizardry behind a curtain.

The search engine optimization industry has gotten a bad rap. Yes, there are hacks. There are a ton of them. There ARE ways to game Google, there are ways to influence rankings that are non-ethical and yes, many companies have been screwed over as Google retaliates and drops them from the rankings.

So, do you want to know my SECRET SEO SAUCE recipe?

Work Hard And Never Stop.
SEO is an ongoing commitment. It's not a one and done. It's not simply playing around with some code and tweaking copy. It's about being dedicated to providing website visitors and customers with an amazing digital experience when they land on one of your digital channels. It's a strategy driven commitment to create remarkable stuff that pulls people to your brand.

Don't Be An Asshole.
As mentioned, yes, there are many ways to screw the system, and yes, screwing the Google system COULD yield some search results, but guess what... Not for long. Practicing in un-ethical practices to hyper-inflate your search rankings is NEVER a good idea. So, don't be an asshole, play by the rules and focus on creating remarkable content and an amazing experience for your site visitors.

Create Amazing.
Why do you want more website visitors?
Who do you want coming to your website?
How do you want them to feel about your brand?

If you can't answer these questions, you shouldn't even have a website. The whole point of the Internet, the core, is to give people what they are looking for. If your SEO / Digital Marketing strategy is to churn out tons of copy in order to attract Google and be NUMBER 1, you're doing it wrong. Plan and simple.

The way to get to the top is to be noticed. Be noticed by creating amazing 'stuff' that people (your audience) are interested in. Ask them what they want. Feed them what they want, talk to them about how you can constantly improve what you are feeding them. Businesses need to realize this: they need to focus on feeding humans rich, amazing content, and THEN optimize that content so that Google loves it. 

Technical Is Important, BUT...
You do need to know the fundamentals of SEO in order to succeed, but, without a strategy to connect, grow and nurture your audience, you may as well hang it up.

- Have a crappy looking, dated website? Why bother optimizing a turd? Build a responsive, beautiful, secure site that people actually WANT to go and experience.

- Obsessed with being number 1 in Google? Stop. Obsess with creating an amazing experience for site visitors and watch what happens.

- Obsessed with H1 tags, Schema markup, ALT tags? Stop. I'm not discounting the technical components, but I am stressing this: Obsess about creating great stuff for that website, obsess about your audience, not about the technical.

Educate Yourself / Trust, But Verify.
I spend hours reading about SEO & Digital Marketing daily. I have to. You have to. It changes every minute which is one of the reasons why I love what I do.

Take the time read about best practices, but do so with caution. Some trusted sources that I visit daily are :

- Learn about marketing, amazing customer service and how to be unique at Seth Godin's blog. 
- Educate yourself about how search engines work at Search Engine Watch.com
- You can find some amazing, unique insight into the world of search, social and more at Search Engine Land.com

Thanks for taking the time to read and share this if you found it valuable. The whole point to my rant here, If you want your site to kickass, create kickass. It's all about the strategy and all about the remarkable content that you create for your target audience.

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